Taut: The Ford Book

I knock on the back seat window and see some blurry movement inside, but no one answers. “Hey,” I call. “Do you have a ride coming?”

The baby answers with a small complaint, then some gurgled noises. And nothing.

Even though I’m freezing my ass off now, I try again. A softer knock this time. “Hello? It’s too cold to be in a parked car with no heat.”

Nothing.

I get the hint and walk away. Hey, if she wants to stay in the car, it’s none of my business. I get all the way back to my room door before I realize I could at least give her a blanket. I look at the door. Then the car. Then the door.

And walk back over to the car. I’m fully wet now, so I stop by the Bronco again and pull out my gym bag that at least has a pair of running shorts and a dry shirt.

I knock on the window again. “Hello—”

“Go away!” the girl yells. Then the baby starts crying for real and she starts swearing inside. Like she’s reached the end of her coping capability and is about to lose it.

I’m familiar with this feeling. I used to get it often.

I scrub my hand down my face and decide to switch tactics. “If you do not answer me, I will call the police and report you for child abuse.”

There’s a brief pause, then the window cranks down a single inch and the girl inside peers up at me from dark eyes. She is young. No older than twenty if I guess right. The snow swirls in the small opening, chilling the baby out of its temporary acquiescence. It straight-out bawls.

“Report me? Are you serious? I have no money for a room, OK? I didn’t plan on getting stuck here in this blizzard, there’s nothing I can do about it. So go ahead, call whoever you want!” She rolls the window back up and I knock again. It rolls back down, a half an inch this time. “What?” she snaps.

I look down at the blanket, then up at the snow illuminated in the street light. It’s so thick the light comes across as a dull gray. I am fully planning on just handing the blanket over and telling her that it will self-heat once she opens the package and exposes it to oxygen. But instead my mouth says, “I have two beds in the room. You could sleep there. It’s the last room they have or I’d just buy you your own.”

“What?” she says, rolling the window down another half an inch.

“I, ah… I’m offering you a place to sleep for the night.”

She stares up at me, blinking.

And then I can’t stand her attention anymore and I pivot and walk away.

What the f**k am I thinking? Stupid. What the f**k?

I push my key into the door and slam it closed behind me. I throw the gym bag on the bed and rip open one of the blanket packages. It takes about fifteen minutes to fully heat up once the bag is open, so I set it on the bed and go start the shower. The water gets hot immediately and this is the first stroke of luck I’ve had all night.

Luck. We are not on speaking terms, luck and I. Because my name is not Ronin Flynn. Luck loves him. Shit, if Ronin was in this predicament, he’d have broken down across from the Four Seasons, they’d tell him they only had the penthouse available, and he could have it for half price since it was sitting empty anyway. They’d send up complimentary fruit baskets and give him free spa passes to ease his worried brow.

I laugh. The sad thing is that it’s closer to the truth than I’d like to admit. Ronin is like… walking magic when it comes to life. Everything he wants, he gets. People love him immediately. They don’t scowl at him because he conjures up memories of almost blowing people up on the golf course or electrocuting boys in the skate park bathroom, or for being the town freak who read every book in the library, even the dictionary and the encyclopedias.

I have had my share of women, albeit on my own very strict no-touching terms. But Ronin has women throwing themselves at him everywhere he goes.

It’s… it’s infuriating. He’s literally a professional liar, for f**k’s sake, and all they see is sweet perfection. But when they look at me they see freak.

I’m a goddamned movie producer. I know famous people. I have a mountain home in Vail, a luxury condo in Denver, and a five-million-dollar monstrosity on Mulholland Drive in Bel Air. I take care of myself, I’m well educated, I’m not bad-looking. I’m sorta hot, actually. I know this, I have no trouble finding sex when I want it.

And yet I get sluts. I swear. Sluts who don’t even blink when I tell them they can’t touch me.

And Ronin? He gets Rook.

She does not give one fancy f**k what Ronin’s part in our business is. Her exact words. Not one fancy f**k. She loves him, no matter what. Unconditionally. She rode a thousand miles on a motorcycle back to the place where the most horrific things happened to her, stole secret files, and almost got her legs burned off in a house fire to save his professionally lying ass.

And I get no-name pets who want me to bend them over a couch and smack their pu**y to make them come.

It’s just… what the f**k? Why? It’s like I have a sign on my f**king head that says I like the weird ones.

I might like to try a nice girl, or at the very least, a semi-nice one with a little freak to her.

I admit, I’m not wholly dissatisfied with the naughty ones. But just once, just f**king once, I’d like the Sandy instead of the Rizzo.

Holy f**k. I just used a Grease Rookism to illustrate my point.

That makes me smile. But then I remember that Rook’s not mine and I just walked away for good. That action—walking away from her, slamming that door and driving off—that was the most painful thing I’ve ever done. And it still hurts. Like… in my chest. I’m not sure what it is, really. This feeling. It’s a little bit like when my dad died a couple years ago. But not really. It’s different.